In the weeks since Harvard’s announcement, Summers has typically spent two or three days a week at his seventh-floor Brookings Economic Studies office. He has continued to collaborate with other Brookings economists, recently giving a speech and presenting a paper at a Brookings economic activity forum.

When colleagues have run into Summers, they too have congratulated him.

“I told him I thought it was a great catch for Harvard,” said Henry J. Aaron, a senior fellow at Brookings. “I think everybody understood that the odds were that he’d find something somewhere, but Brookings certainly would have wanted him to stay on.”

Even when Summers is home and at Brookings, Harvard is still a focus.

“Lots of people from Harvard and others close to it have come through his office,” Aaron said.

During the remaining three months before Summers moves to Cambridge, his work at Brookings will consist of a small number of papers and speeches. Until then, he will remain living in Bethesda, Md.

Summers declined to comment on a report that he and his wife Victoria plan to separate at that time. But University spokesperson Joe Wrinn confirmed that Summers’ wife and children will stay in the Washington area when Summers moves.